Cooled Toast and a Pumpkin Juice Pitcher
by Jemennuie
Summary: Jimmy Peakes and his thoughts as a first year on appearance, on bravery, and on a certain other first-year Gryffindor. One-shot.


**Cooled Toast and a Pumpkin Juice Pitcher**

They are both locked in a battle with their genetics, Jimmy thinks. He can tell by the awkward slant of her shoulders, by the bend of her spaghetti legs, by the folding of her wiry neck, that she would like to be anything but the tallest first year in Hogwarts, a veritable sky scraper surrounded by mud huts. He supposes he must be an equally ridiculous sight, with the arches of his feet, the vertebrae of his spine and every muscle in his neck constantly straining in a hopeless attempt against his fate as the absolute shortest first year. If she is a skyscraper and the others mud huts, he must be an anthill.

He is a Gryffindor and thus wishes that he had something more worthy to be fighting against than something as unchangeable as his genetic material. Instead, he likes to imagine as King Arthur in the fight for some just cause; he supposes that he ought to be idealizing Godric Gryffindor, the namesake of his house, and not the Muggle warrior who will forever stand in Merlin's shadow, but in his opinion King Arthur is braver, for he was just a Muggle surrounded by magic. Godric Gryffindor, one of the most powerful wizards of his time, could not have needed as much bravery as King Arthur before a battle—Arthur, who fought without shield charms, whose only weapon was a flimsy piece of sharpened metal.

And if Jimmy likes to imagine himself as Arthur before a battle, sword glinting in a well-placed beam of sunlight, standing tall as he unemotionally watches the oncoming hordes of faceless troops, adrenaline and courage his sole defenders, then he likes to imagine her as Guinevere. Not the Guinevere of legends, who is a colorless sliver of a player on the world's stage compared to Arthur, but instead a Guinevere who is an equal, who walks with and fights by Arthur, side-by-side against the forces of evil.

But the nagging voice in the back of his head tells him that he will never be King Arthur, because the sort of brave men that others look up to, the legends that are constructed from bronze and steel meeting parchment and ink, are always tall and long-limbed, muscular without a stocky build or a thick neck, with light eyes and hair that glints gold in the sunlight. No, Jimmy does not have the appearance of a hero. With his short stature, bulky build, gorilla-like arms, and a brow ridge that would make Neanderthals proud, he looks more the role of a two dimensional, dim-witted villain. He imagines that even in the most ideal of worlds, he will at most ever be seen as righteous brute force, miles separate from a true hero of the legends.

It is a day almost like any other when he happens to arrive to his Transfiguration class a few minutes early and, for reasons he can only imagine—an alarm a few minutes fast, an outfit already out, toast that was already cooled, a pumpkin juice pitcher that was a bit emptier, a lack of mail—she is also there a few minutes early. Despite being in the same house, he has rarely talked to her—Demelza, as he has to remind himself, not Guinevere as he silently refers to her as.

"You're Jimmy, right?" He gives an affirmative nod, and the classroom is draped in silence for a few seconds before she gives a slight cough and continues, "I don't know if we've ever officially met. It's nice to meet you," she haltingly holds out her hand, as though unsure he will accept a handshake, and Jimmy notices that for once she doesn't seem to be stooping into her customary, height-hiding posture. "I mean, not to make it sound like I haven't noticed you or anything. Not like anything bad, just, um-" the words trip out of her mouth and she starts focusing her attention on biting off a nonexistent hangnail.

"You've probably seen me practicing for beater during the first years' flying lessons," he states with a hint of sourness to his voice, because that sort of brute strength is all he's known for.

"I—no, I wasn't going to say that. I mean, I've noticed you in Transfiguration. Like, after the Ravenclaws you're normally one of the first people to successfully complete the transfiguration." She is still chewing her hangnail, but now she looks at him cautiously, as though afraid that she may have said too much.

"Oh, um, yes, I suppose that may be true sometimes." Now it his turn to look away as the edges of his ears turn pink because he has never been complemented for his transfiguration skills before.

"I've noticed you practicing with the bludgers, too," she adds as she hastily moves onto another nail. "Are you going to try out for the team?"

"I wasn't planning to. There's no spots open right now and, besides," he chews his lower lip as he debates whether to state his thoughts. "And besides, I don't want to be known just as a beater. I enjoy playing that position, but a lot of people joke that of all the Quidditch players beaters are those who have the fewest brain cells."

Demelza cocks her head to the left. "You do well in your classes though, I don't think people could ever joke that about you. And, I mean, I would certainly never think that about you." She gives him an honest sort of smile, a slight curve to her thin lips, and suddenly Jimmy doesn't care what others might think of him, because he knows there is one person who seems to see him for who he is.

When he tries out for the Quidditch team two years later, he is almost happier to learn that Demelza is going to be on the team with him, than he is to learn about his own acceptance to the team.

…

A/N: This was written as a birthday gift for XxrandomxX. Happy belated birthday Amy!


End file.
